...Because although I DID (yay!) make the entire bike ride without stopping or giving into the urge to get a free ride home by swerving in front of a car (or that tractor that I had to pass), I can no longer get off the couch. I have also no ability to drag myself around using my arms since the 'training' for the push-up portion of my physical testing has pulled every muscle along my entire rib cage. And so I am going to stop uploading photos (which are now hidden until I can arrange 'em all), plug in Blade III set it to repeat and not get up until tomorrow morning.

When I shall try to do it again.

In the meantime....

By the time I managed to repress my ex-boyfriend, I was half way to the subway station, sweating and rather shaky and I thought, well, should I go to therapy? Am I repressing lots of stuff? Of course I fucking am. No prizes for figuring that out. Am I going fucking mad, at last? It's been a rough couple of weeks for me, for various reasons. Maybe finally, I've reached breaking point. I've repressed too much. I'm going to burst in some horrible way. Mentally only, I hope. Physical bursting would be messy and painful and grim.

But then I remembered the couple of times I have dabbled in therapy. It usually comprised of me sitting remembering miserable things that had happened to me for an hour a week and receiving 'explanations' of stuff I'd already figured out, that made absolutely no dent in the mountain of misery that engulfed me. Analysis is one thing I'm actually good at. I can make sense of it all now. I just can't change what happened, and I never seemed to get any more cheerful about it all. Talking about it didn't actually make it any better. I've been talking about it for years. And I'm still a miserable bastard.

When my mother was dying, I went to see a very wise counsellor indeed, called Angela. She told me you don't have to spend all your time obssessing on the bad stuff that happened to you. You can just decide to let it go. Forgive it and dump it like a heavy lump of bricks you've been carrying around with you everywhere unnecessarily. So I did. And it felt much better. It took a bit of work over the years, but I figured I'd made some progress getting on with my life. I'm miserable, sure, but I'm functional.

come have a drink, with the thirsty love guzzlerfrom the darkside, baby, don't be afraidyou can't fight the thirst, nor escape the Blade

You may have noticed I didn't say, 'to the beach and back', if only because I'm not sure I can make it. Although, really, I've got no choice.

My legs hurt even thinking about it but I've mapped out a route that's roughly 40% downhill. I'm sneaky that way.

How sad is that? Ah well, every journey begins with one little step and I'm never going to be able to do the long bike rides without soldiering through the short ones, now am I?

It is, however, supposed to rain all weekend and that would mean that I would spend it in here. Adding things.

You may have noticed the new section "my log books" down there on the right. Don't go look, there's nothing there yet -but it's new galleries.

Although, I now pay for this site and I have a WHACKLOAD of space, I'm going to need tons of it for travelling so the new galleries will be populated by just my favorite pictures. Or, they will once it rains.

The passworded areas will also return (and actually do some growing) so if you had a password in the last place, then I'll send you one for the "crew's quarters" once it's all prettified and populated.

when I turned seventeenwe had passion, we had dreamsthought the love we were fighting forwas something holy, something more

"New research out of Bristol University in England has found farm animals are much more intelligent and emotional that we ever thought. Testing carried out on cows, pigs, goats and chickens found that all of these animals are remarkably similar to humans when it comes to socialization and all have complex mental lives which include the ability to nurture long-term friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges.

For example, they found cows actually form cliques with their friends and are able to bear a grudge against another cow for several years."

(So, THAT'S what was weird about my high school.)

Even chickens may have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.

Researchers at Bristol University found that pigs are masters of deceit, deliberately misleading other pigs if it would result in more food for themselves.

Chickens command an extraordinary degree of self-control over food. They are willing to delay gratification if they think a larger portion will be offered in due course.

cause if i wasn't worth itthat makes me worse off then you areand now it's all around mei'm surrounded

Since I'm tired, this may come out all wrong as it's from notes I wrote while the family kept yelling "are you writing in a journal?". But it's Thanksgiving and I have to do this before I go to bed. So.....

I just walked alone along this amazing beach through a fantastic sunset, the lake so massive you can barely see the far shore....being quiet within myself for the first time in ages. Just walking and listening to my heart.

Full circle around to the pier, walking out to the end to sit with my legs over the water, three new rocks in my hand. Total silence around me. A bite in the air. A still lake.

And I realized that I was utterly and completely at peace. Which is not something I am very often, although - to be fair, it is something I am more and more.

Underlying that peace, in my heart there is this exquisite ... something. Joy is the best word I have to describe it. Fierce leaping joy.

A joy that has never been a part of this girls heart before. There are a lot of reasons for it to be there, I know. Things all new to me that, this year, I have decided and felt and found.

And then it occurs to me that I think you have this joy in your heart all the time. I think that maybe I understand you a little better than I did before. And I envy you a little, but only for a minute, because something inside of me knows that recognizing it today is only the beginning and that now that I know it's there, I'll always be able to find it. Even if it's only a little bit when I really need it.

This is one of the things that I have been learning from you. I know this because whether or not it was always there, it has only begun to grow big enough for me to recognize since I met you.

You are a lot of things, Matt, but somewhere inside of you lives the wild and true heart of a child and that is a precious thing to have and to share.

I think they could feel that I showed remarkable and admirable restraint by not giving into the desperate urge to bang my head on the table.

All I have to say is that if she actually makes it to basic and expects to whine her way through it like she did through 3.5 hours on Monday, then we'd best be hoping I'm not there. I won't be reaching back with my hand to help her over the obstacles or putting my hand on her ass to shove her over from behind. My definition of team these days consists mostly of the phrase, "Suck it up and MOVE, bitch".

I'll definitely be one of those mean Navy Seal-type bastards in my own private "GI Jen" movie.

I've just had a couple of days with my "family" that have done nothing but emphatically reinforce that the best thing I ever did was leave them behind.

Followed by the conviction that I had to come back to conquer this before leaving forever. But that it's going to SUCK THE BIG ONE.

And I'll talk about it. But not now.

Because right now, I'm remembering what my boss said this morning..."It's good that you can see another point of view and not take it so personally, but whatever their reasons, Jen - they say hurtful things to you. Coming back, no matter how far you've come - puts you right back in it and you need always to remember
WHO you are."

Because right now, 'House' is on, the cat needs a cuddle, I need to call Wade cause he's coming to visit next week (and bringing good tequila, god love him), and then I'm going to bed because tomorrow....

I have to be at work at the crack of freakin' dawn to deal with emergencies in the wards caused by the fact that our own staff, in the grand tradition of grown men acting like your worst female teenager nightmare, changed the locks deliberately so that the staff they agreed to give their duties to so we could bypass the crap they've been pulling for two years couldn't do their job.

In a hospital.

There's something wrong with this world.

And, this may be a newsflash, but I become more sure all the time it's not me. At least not like I always thought it was.

It has occurred to me, or actually, DID occur to me this morning through 3.5 MIND NUMBING hours at the recruitment centre listening to the rusted wheels turn that maybe I should explain that whole "did I mention I enlisted" post.

I don't know if I mentioned that I'd been looking around for a part time job?

MONEY! GIVE ME MONEY! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!

Everyone sort of pushed for me to use the bartending experience or do the waitress thing but frankly, I just don't have it in me to be that nice to other people on top of the day job. I'm sure you can all agree with that, these days.

I've always wanted to learn to be a lineman. You know, one of those telephone repair / climb the pole people? Yeah. Weird, I know. But, lets face it, I'm in telecommunications and my job used to be technical and now it's all about project freakin' management. Which is fine - it's only a year. But it's project freakin' management. Bleurgh.

BUT (you knew that was coming, hey?) there aren't really any other countries ready to go full on business VOIP (voice over internet) and I've been wanting a little more practical skills that would afford me some absolute mad portability to well, every country where I could possibly want someone to give me a 'real' job.

So, telecommuniations. Lineman. Switch installation. Trunking. Get in there and get those hands all grubby. Climb things! Get in one of those bucket trucks and play with the controls!

Of course, the only way to do that would be to change jobs, move to a more expensive place, spend a couple years slogging through and shit, I just don't have the time for that, yanno? I'd about given up, really, until suddenly - THERE IT WAS!

Canadian Forces. Reserves. Communications Squadron. Which pays shite (it's still MONEY!) but the training! Freaking beautiful. And BASIC! I'd be in great shape! And, yes, I don't have to go anywhere if I don't want to. And I can quit anytime. Cause it's just a part-time job. That will pay to teach me the very thing I want so much to learn!

So, I guess that what I'm trying to say is - this morning I completed the first round of testing (aptitude) to become Private Jenjamin.

God help us all.

(oh but can you imagine? An endless WELL of stories! A plethora of military puns! I already have at least three stories percolating from this morning alone! The things I do to keep all of you entertained, I tell ya.)

do you believein what you seemotionless wheelnothing is realwasting my timein the waiting line